


Mortimer

by FaeryPeopleOfTheFutureDay



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 14,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25364593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaeryPeopleOfTheFutureDay/pseuds/FaeryPeopleOfTheFutureDay
Summary: There are two types of time travelers: wealthy tourists and highly trained agents to fix their mistakes. I am the latter, but no amount of training could prepare me for what I found at Luthor Manor.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Kudos: 25





	1. Prologue

**Prologue: Three days, 1 hour, 27 minutes, 48 seconds, and counting**

3 days, 1 hour, 27 minutes, 48 seconds and counting. That was how long Lionel Luthor had left. He and Lillian had tried everything, but there was no delaying the clock this time. Everyone else in the house was dead asleep, but the red digital numbers kept him awake. Every second they changed, constantly reminding him of his mortality. The device emitted no audible sound, but the ticking pulsed in his head, slowly driving him insane.

He only had three days, one hour, twenty six minutes, fifty seven seconds and counting to fix this. It didn't matter. He and Lillian had been trying to fix the problem of the bracelets ever since they arrived in 1842. So far, they had been able to use an electromagnet to continuously delay the doomsday set on the device, but on November 1st, 1854, their technique no longer worked. The bracelets stopped responding to the treatment. In their head, they both knew this would happen eventually. They had always known. But neither of them ever really believed it.

It was now November 26th, and Lillian had finally found the sleep that evaded Lionel. He sat at the window and stared at the moon, remembering how he and Lillian had done so only weeks prior.

_She told him that it was a partial lunar eclipse and how incredible it was. She assured him that they would figure things out. They always did. But for a moment, they should just look at the beautiful and wondrous thing right in front of them, not to miss it._

_Yeah, he agreed, except he wasn't looking at the moon when he said it._

There had to be a way out of this. There just had to. If not for his sake, if not for her sake, then for their children's sake. He eyed the butcher knife and wondered.

The bracelet was attached to his wrist, set to activate in three days. Any attempt to remove or destroy it would not only be painful but would also cause it to activate. Others had tried it before. Lionel knew it was suicide.

But what if there were a way to separate himself from the organic matter that it was set to destroy? If he could cut into his arm, above the bracelet, would it work? Or would he just die sooner and more painfully?

Was it worth it to find out?

He lit a candle and watched the flame dance. It jumped and ran in circles, trying to break free of the wick that tethered it.

Dying might not be so bad. Lillian would die too, just a few seconds after him. When her timer went off. That would be worse, but at least he wouldn't have to watch.

But what about them? They would be left all alone, orphaned in three days, one hour, five minutes plus one more, twenty three seconds and counting.

It would be painful, yes. Whether or not it worked. But dying without trying—without knowing if he could have prevented it—would also be painful. He had to at least try.

He gripped the knife in his right hand and brought it down. He hissed in pain as he drew blood. It was only a small cut. His body didn't like being hurt, especially not by itself. He had to do more, to fight the pain that tried to stop him from fighting himself.

He could do this, he told himself. He could tolerate the pain. He lifted the knife and brought it down again. He tried to hold in his screams, but he heard them anyway. His cuts still weren't deep enough.

Lillian would be awake soon, with all the noise. She would try to stop him, tell him that there had to be another way. But there wasn't. They had been trying to find another way for weeks now, and if he didn't do this now, they would continue to tell themselves that there was another way for another three days, one hour, four minutes, thirty seconds and counting.

He couldn't let Lillian stop him, and he couldn't let pain stop him either. He had to act fast. He had to do this now. He gripped the knife tighter and brought it down hard on the counter, practicing a final blow and wincing at the sound it made when it made contact.

He gritted his teeth and clenched the knife handle. He was already screaming, even before the knife made contact. He kept screaming as it tore through his skin and tendons.

He continued to scream even when he could no longer cut at the bloody mess. He might have stopped screaming then, if he fainted. But he didn't. He only screamed harder when his body started to glow and he could feel warmth coursing through his veins. His blazing body turned his tears to steam and all he could do was scream. Until the bloody knife dropped to the floor, littered with ashes. An eerie silence filled the house, as though the agonizing screams of Lionel Luthor had become part of it, and their absence made the silence so loud and abnormal that a toddler woke up and quickly filled the void with its own cries, waking the mother who was not all that surprised to see her husband missing from their bed, but would later be surprised to see blood and ashes on her kitchen floor and litter the floor with her own tears once she realized who the ashes came from.


	2. A Critical Excursion

"Ladies and gentleman," the attractive woman with the bright red lipstick and dark brown eyes began. She recited her little speech for the passengers as she had done on every journey, with an over enthusiastic smile and a tone in her voice like she was speaking to a group of small children. She pulled out what a common person might mistake for an ordinary pocket watch and checked the reading. "We have arrived at our second stop. The local time is a quarter past noon, May 28th, 1851. Those of you exiting, please stay with your tour guide and enjoy the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. Everyone else, please remain seated. Thank-you for traveling with Mortimer."

I pulled out a gadget of my own, a scanner disguised as a small silver coin. I pretended to be absentmindedly fiddling with it as the passengers walked down the aisle to the open door.

Information about them flooded my mind. I sorted through it, but found nothing of any significance. They were exactly what they seemed to be. What I was pretending to be. An ordinary tourist.

The woman, along with some of the other personal, preformed another security check, making sure each passenger's band was fastened securely to skin on his or her wrist. Then they were gone. The doors closed and the engine started up again.

When we reached our final destination, the woman gave her speech again, this time informing us that it was March of 1864 and we would get to see the royal society.

And then it was our turn for a security check.

I hated this part. It was bad enough having a timebomb surgically implanted in your wrist. Strangers tugging at it made me even more nervous. I looked up from my coin to see who would be checking me this time. A small smile tugged at my lips when I saw that it was the woman.

"Just don't cut the red wire," I told her as her cold fingers touched my wrist, trying to ease my nerves with humor and maintain my cover as an ignorant tourist.

"Don't worry, sweetie," she reassured in her kindergarten teacher voice. "You'll be just fine."

As if to prove her point, she tugged at my bracelet so lightly that I didn't even wince.

"How many people have been killed by one of these?" I asked, though I knew the answer. She didn't answer, but she removed her fingers from my wrist and I could feel my insides deflate slightly at the lack of contact.

"You'll be perfectly safe as long as you follow the rules," she moved onto the next passenger. I touched my coin and learned that her name was Eliza and she had worked for Mortimer for the past seven years, so she had been an attendant only during the third Incident. A man and a woman left behind in Victorian England. Now there would be nothing left of them except ashes scattered by the wind.

When Mortimer first introduced time travel to the general public, at least the small fraction that could afford it, protesters railed about the damaging effects of paradoxes and other problems untrained professionals could create.

Constant supervision wasn't enough. So the bracelets were created. First, they just had a timebomb, a device that caused the person to spontaneously combust once the time ran out. Once the trip was over, the timebomb would be disabled, but passengers that stayed in the past would not only be punished for their actions, but erased from a place where they could cause trouble and anachronism. After the third Incident, the bracelets were equipped with a tracking device that allowed Mortimer to track down lost passengers. Since then, we haven't had any more Incidents.


	3. Welcome to 1864

I exited the vessel and made my way down the hallway, marveling at how narrow it was. I saw some construction underway and remembered that Mortimer was remodeled in 1865, the year Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published. Another book I wouldn't be able to read yet.

I stopped by one of the little shops on my way to the tubes. I looked on the shelves to see what books I could read. There was a collection of Shakespeare plays, most of which I had read multiple times. My fingers brushed past Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, not quite in the mood for all that drama. I lingered on A Christmas Carol for a moment before finally selecting Frankenstein. I took my selection to the cashier and typed in my employee code K431. It was the closest thing I had to a real name, a real identity. That was one of the reasons my mission was so important.

I had a life before Mortimer, nearly a decade of memories, and I need to know what it was like. What was my name? What were my parents like? Why did they give their daughter up to be trained by an agency? Were they trying to help me or did they just not want me?

The whole point of wiping my mind was to clear space to learn more of the things they wanted me to know, to control what I knew and what I didn't know, to make sure that I was loyal only to them. Only once I had succeeded in a certain number of missions would my memories be returned. I wasn't sure exactly how many, but I suspected that this first mission was the most important.

My task was simple, supposedly. I needed to investigate the strange occurrences surrounding Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. There seemed to be more patients than there should be, and their crimes were most unusual. There was talk of supernatural monsters and dark magic. I needed to find out what was going on and what key events started this alternate timeline. Fixing it was the job of someone higher up than me, someone with intact memories.

I bought and drank some tea as I waited for the crowds by the tubes to dwindle. Everyone had to go in one by one. This was one of the problems that caused the remodeling.

When I finally made it to the tubes, I paused to touch the glass. It looked like a giant hamster tube leading up through the ceiling and farther upwards until I could no longer see it.

"We don't have all day," a gruff voice from behind me said. The fingers closed around the coin in my pocket as I glanced around at Ernest Traubel—a gray-haired old man who owned three different golf courses on Mars—and stepped inside the opening to the capsule. A curved piece of the capsule slid around, acting as a door closing. Then I was pulled towards the surface of Earth by the pneumatic tube. I tried not to scream as I gained speed. This was the first time I had been in one of these that I could remember, but I suspected that someone made the journey more comfortable in the future.

My capsule began to slow and eventually came to a stop at the top of the tube in a warehouse. The door opened and I quickly stepped out, not wanting the capsule to fall back down to get Ernest with me still inside. My eyes adjusted to the light and I scanned my surroundings. There were maybe seven other tubes in the room I was in, each delivering disoriented passengers one by one. Arrows pointed us to dressing rooms to get clothing appropriate for this time period. I groaned, dreading being dressed in all those frilly layers with too much lacing and barely enough room to breathe. Maybe I could pretend to be a man. That would come with its own difficulties, though, and I wanted my mission to succeed. I took a deep breath and stepped into the room to see what horrors awaited me.


	4. A New Acquaintance

An overeager employee thrust his hand out to me. I took it cautiously and shook it.

"It's so nice to have you here." He smiled like he had been waiting his whole life to meet me. "My name is Luka," he explained, pointing to his name badge. I gave him a polite nod and said nothing about myself. I didn't have to.

I turned away from him to examine the fabric of the clothes.

"My last name is Danvers," he offered. "And you can have it anytime you like."

I turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "I'm flattered, but-" I began, before he cut me off.

"No!" He blushed. "I-I didn't mean it like that. I just thought that if you were looking for a last name then- I mean, it's not as if I could even think of _you_ like that, not that there's anything wrong-" he groaned. "I'm making it worse, aren't I?"

I laughed and nodded.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend you. It's just-" he paused. "It's hard to explain."

"Let's just focus on the clothes," I suggested to the flustered employee.

"Right, right," he muttered, mostly to himself, grabbing a cloth tape measure and stepping towards me. "I am apologizing in advance, because while this may feel like an invasion of your personal space, I just need to take some measurements."

I took off my jacket and he wrapped the measure around my waist. I stood as still as I could as he measured me and wrote down numbers in his book. I could feel the warmth radiating from his dainty hands. His fingernails were neatly trimmed and buffed so that they shone as if coated with clear nail polish, which they might have been. When he was finished, he took his books and scanned the racks of clothing. I took the opportunity to touch the coin in my pocket. His name was indeed Luka Danvers and he had first started working here a little over two years ago, but before that, there was no mention of him, like his past had been erased from my databanks the same way my past had been erased from my mind. He was fairly attractive—with spikey strawberry blonde hair and amber eyes—though he struck me as the type of man who was more interested in other men.

He handed me a dress and ushered me into a changing room to put it on. I dressed as best I could, knowing that I would require his assistance, but trying finish as much as I could by myself first.

"What did you do before working here?" I asked Luka, wanting to see if he remembered any of his past. My early life was also erased from my databanks, at least with my level of access.

"I lived with my parents," he responded matter-of-factly. "They and provided for me until the day I decided to go out into the world see what I could do on my own. I tried working for my uncle, but that didn't work out. Then I became a tailor's apprentice, and worked my way up to here." I couldn't see him, but I figured he was gesturing around his shop as he said that last part.

In a soft voice, I asked him to tell me about his parents. I tried to sound curious, but he may have heard the sadness in my voice.

"They were just parents, I suppose. They were kind and caring. I'm not exactly sure what you want me to give you."

"A memory," I said as I stepped out of the dressing room. "Share a memory with me."

I must have looked sad, because I could see pity in his eyes. He moved towards me to finish up the ties and laces on my dress and granted my wish. "When I was a small child, I had a toy train engine. I loved that toy train, and I would run around our house with it making train noises. I even had a little conductor's hat."

Once he finished with my dress, he turned to face, and I had a soft smirk on my face imagining this man as the child he described.

"One day," he continued, "when I was running, I tripped on a rug and my train went flying. My mother rushed over to me, examining my body for scrapes and bruises while I wailed for my lost train. Some of the wheels were broken, and my mother just held me tight until I stopped crying. The next morning, I found my train sitting at my place on the dining table, the broken wheels replaced with buttons."

I closed my eyes and tried to picture myself as the child in Luka's story, feeling the emotions of despair of the broken train and delight to find it fixed. I tried to imagine the warmth of his mother's hug and the love she must have had for him. When I closed my eyes, it almost felt real.

I thanked Luka for the clothes and left his shop. It was mission time.


	5. A Sane Woman

While the rest of my group went to see the royal society in London, I made my way to Berkshire to pay a visit to my good friends in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic asylum.

Now to be a good spy, you have to be good at pretending to be someone else (it's a running joke that agents spend so much time pretending to be other people that they themselves do not exist). Currently, I was Caroline Charleston, the young wife of a wealthy nobleman who was considering making a large donation. When there's money on the line, people will do pretty much anything to get it. In addition to that, around my neck hung a crystal of synthesized astatine isotope which sent out a series of pulses that interfered with certain types of brain waves, basically making it difficult, if not impossible to lie. As an agent, I was in theory trained to overcome its effects, but even I found it difficult to say anything about being Caroline Charleston after I turned it on.

The man currently giving me a tour of the asylum was named Hank Henshaw, though he insisted I call him Hank. He rattled off some facts about how Broadmoor built to a design by Sir Joshua Jebb, how the first patient was admitted in 1862 for clinical lycanthropy, having murdered small animals and later children under the delusion that he was a werewolf.

I frowned in confusion. That wasn't right. The first patient had been a woman, a woman who murdered her infant child. And she was admitted in 1863, not 1862. There was something strange going on here.

Hank continued to explain how the asylum was not only beneficial, but needed for society to function. It was crucial to keep the criminally insane locked up. He spoke like a salesman, telling me every little detail about the asylum, whether it was important or not. The crystal was working.

We entered a large room with lots of beds. It must have been one of the women's wards. On one of the beds sat an old woman carefully brushing the hair of a younger woman sitting on the floor beside the bed. They looked so normal, like mother and daughter. It was hard to imagine them as insane, much less criminals. I asked Hank about them.

"The older woman you see is Henrietta Crane," he explained. "She was one of our first patients. It's a tragic story, really."

He looked at me like he really wanted to continue but was afraid to tell me the rest of the story, because I was a fragile woman who needed to be protected from such atrocities and might faint at any moment. I assured him that I would be fine and urged him to continue. With some hesitation, he did, though he refused to look at me while he did so.

"She found out her husband was having an affair with a younger woman and in her rage," Hank continued to stare at his unusually white shoes, "she killed their infant daughter. She was jealous of her youth, you see. Some women find aging to be rather difficult and Henrietta is now under the delusion that by killing the child, she stole its youth, and now believes herself to be a young girl."

I studied Henrietta's joyful smile, the way she stuck her tongue between her lips in concentration, the way she treated the younger woman like a doll to be played with.

"What about the other girl?" I asked. "The younger woman." He blushed as if I had just asked about his undergarments.

"We're trying something new with that one." He strained against the crystal at that point, but I urged him to continue.

"What do you mean?"

"Viewing that individual as a woman, she is perfectly sane and has no business being in an asylum, much less Broadmoor."

"but…" I prompted. The crystal wouldn't let him lie, but I wouldn't let him stop speaking.

"But following genetics and viewing that individual as a man paints an entirely different picture. When Isaac Barker's parents first brought him here, he was unstable and very violent. He was also under the delusion that he was a woman, which is the main reason they brought him here. They wanted him locked up for good."

"For months, we tried putting him with the men, but it just didn't work out. No matter how beaten and wounded he became-"

"Beaten?" I asked, interrupting him.

"Usually by the other patients," he clarified. "He just wouldn't stop telling us he was a woman. Finally one of the nurses decided that 'if Isaac Barker wants to play dress up, then I say we let him. There's a lot madder things going on here.' It's much easier this way. He's so calm and well behaved now."

"But you won't allow her to leave?" I asked. His eye twitched at my feminine pronoun and I internally smirked at his discomfort. Placing so much emphasis on two simple chromosomes is ridiculous anyway.

"Don't worry," Hank said, thinking I had asked because I was afraid of Isaac being released. He continued in a deep and serious tone. "No one ever leaves Broadmoor."

As we continued the tour, I felt bad that Isaac could never leave this prison, but at the same time, I wondered if the world on the outside, living for her parents' approval and trying to be socially accepted would be a-whole-nother prison entirely, just with different rules and uniforms.


	6. Fighting for her Soul

"They're coming for me!" A woman behind a locked door screamed.

"Who is that?" I asked Hank. He held his finger up to his lips indicating that I should be silent. I heard someone throw themselves at the inside of the door.

"If someone is there…" spoke a voice hoarse from screaming. I moved closer to the door hesitantly, much to Hank's distress. I pressed my right ear to the door.

"Who's coming for you?" I asked.

"The monsters," she whispered. She started chanting.

"They're coming for me in two days time,

to take everything that once was mine,

when the second moon makes its shine.

They bear bat's teeth and wolf's wings,

and not one bird dares to sing.

There is no escape from those devilish things."

She continued to repeat those lines over again and Hank pulled me away from the door and down the hall, apologizing profusely for the scene and explaining that there was a reason that her room had been locked.

Still. Monsters, lycanthropy. It couldn't be a coincidence. I made a mental note to look up the next blue moon when I had the chance.

"What about the first patient?" I asked. "With lycanthropy? May I see him?"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," he said solemnly.

"And why is that?" He tried to brush it off, but he looked very scared.

"I can assure you that nothing like that will happen again. We have a better staff now and-"

"What happened?" I enunciated each word clearly and directly, as if speaking to a child.

"He's escaped," Hank nearly whispered. "But I-"

He was interrupted by a loud boom of thunder and I screamed. I don't know why. I'm not scared of thunder. It's just vibrations accompanying hot air expanding. A cackle of laughter sounded from within the asylum and I could hear Hank yelling after me as my feet carried me rapidly down the hall to the locked exit door.

Why did I think it wouldn't be locked? This is an asylum. More than that, it's Broadmoor. Hank chased after me. Why was I trying to run away anyway? I'm not scared of thunder. I'm not scared of asylums. Still, my breath came out faster and my heart pounded like it was trying to escape from my chest.

I felt like I had been here before, but I couldn't remember.

My hand kept pounding on the door, trying to escape. My face was wet with tears and sweat.

Then I was outside. I could only vaguely remember Hank letting me out. I was running as fast as I could, away from all of this.

There was something about the combination of the thunder and the asylum walls and the screaming man that sent pure terror coursing through my veins.

I stopped for a second to catch my breath. My dress was torn and my feet ached from running in these shoes. I could feel myself calming down, now that I was away from all of that. But now I had a new problem: It was so dark that I could hardly see, and the thunderstorm was pouring rain on me.

It still made no sense.

But at the same time, I smiled softly because for the first time in my life, I remembered something about my childhood. Not a complete memory, but the strong emotions of a memory.


	7. Enter freely, and of your own free will

My clothes were soaked with rain and I was shivering as I stumbled through the darkness. I was completely lost and could not begin to find my way back to the asylum, even if I could convince the rest of my body to come along. Lightning struck again and I could see the faint outline of a building in the distance. I continued towards it, hoping to find shelter before I get hypothermia.

Finally, I made my way out of the trees and reached the house, if it could even be called a house. Now that I was out of the trees, the moonlight illuminated a large ornate double door, more windows than I could count, and three towers: one above the door and two on either side of the building. The whole manor was surrounded with a tall fence, the iron gate of which was cold to the touch.

"May I help you?" A man asked as I touched the gate. I had not seen or heard him approach. I couldn't make out his face very well, but I could see that he was tall and thin, dressed in the black and white suit of a butler.

"I-uh-" I struggled to find my words. "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but I was looking for shelter from the storm and I thought…"

His face expanded slightly in what was likely a smile. "But of course. The Master and Madame will love to have company." He stepped aside. "Enter freely, go safely, and leave some of the happiness you bring," I hesitated.

Fear resonated inside me and my mind screamed run. This was not the terror I felt in the asylum. This was my rational mind telling me not to trust this strange man. But there was something else my mind picked up. His mouth echoed the words of Count Dracula, a fictional character who would not be written into existence for another 34 years. Any anachronism, however small, was worth looking into. In the end, my curiosity outweighed by desire to not become an idiot like Johnathan Harker and I entered.

A moan escaped my lips as I stepped into the warmth, but the sound of the large door closing and the clicking of locks sent a shiver down my spine. I was beginning to regret leaving the woods. Outside was wet and uncomfortable, but the inside of the manor gave me an eerie feeling. I shouldn't be here. What was I thinking charging blindly into an unknown environment?

"Fenris?" a young boy asked from the top of the stairwell, looking from the butler to me. As he walked down the stairs towards us, I could see that he was wearing a very nice and expensive black dark green suit, with bits of gold weaved into the fabric. The dark-haired boy couldn't have been more than thirteen, but he carried himself with a certain maturity and solemnness that made it hard not to be intimidated by him.

Instead of going all the way down the stairs, the boy stood on the second to last step and eyed the bracelet on my wrist. I wanted to cover it up with my hand, but that would only make it appear more suspicious. I waited nervously.

"Take her to Lena," he said finally. Fenris bowed and escorted me out. I scanned my surroundings for an escape route, but I knew that I would not be able to use any of them with Fenris around. He was too strong, too fast. I bit the inside of my lip nervously as I climbed the staircase with Fenris's talon like grip on my shoulder.

We entered a room with a crackling fireplace. I spent the past decade training and when I finally get the chance to go on a mission, I mess it up and get trapped inside some creepy house. I was a pathetic excuse for an agent.

I was so focused on berating myself that I didn't notice the girl until she emitted a faint laugh. A scoff really. Like she was expecting more than me. She wouldn't be the first one I disappointed.


	8. All in a Sea of Wonders

"Bye Fenris," the girl dismissed the servant with a glare and he left after bowing to her, shutting the door behind him. What was this girl going to do to me? I eyed the singular window, wondering if I could get past her, and then if I could survive the fall. If I was already acting like Jonathan Harker, maybe I could escape Dracula's castle like him too.

The girl looked about seventeen and had the same dark hair as the young boy. Unlike him, however, her eyes were a striking shade of cerulean. She walked towards me slowly, coming much closer than I anticipated. She grabbed my left hand and examined my wrist. Her fingers were warm, and part of me wished she wouldn't let go.

 _Focus,_ I thought to myself. _You might die. Now is not exactly the time to get a crush on a pretty girl, especially if she's about to kill you._

"No," she muttered to herself. "It isn't the same." She looked up at me accusingly. "Who are you and where did you get this?"

"Um, I, uh" I tried to say, terrified of what she might do to me, trying to be a good spy and keeping the organization's secrets, and also still in awe of her sapphire eyes.

"Okay, let's try this again." She sat down one of the large chairs in front of the fireplace and motioned

"Car-" I began to say Carline, but decided against using my alias from the asylum. "Kara Danvers," I made up.

"Classy," she noted. "And when are you from, Kara?" She asked. She pronounced _Kara_ like it was a term of endearment.

"When?" I asked, not sure if I've heard her right. It was a likely conclusion, as I was having trouble concentrating with her eyes fixed on mine.

"I've seen those bracelets before," Lena explained in an irritated tone as she got up and walked over towards me. "It may not look exactly the same," her fingers closed around my wrist, "but I'm guessing that if we pry this off, it'll do the exact same thing."

I had not quite yet reached the level of terror that I had been in in the asylum, but I was getting there.

Lena didn't have a bracelet. Neither did the boy, who was likely her little brother. The Master and the Madame, Fenris had said. Not married, but siblings. How did they know so much about the bracelets, about time travel if they were not time travelers themselves? They must have encountered time travelers before, but-

If we pry this off, it'll do the exact same thing.

My heart sank when I realized that they had been responsible for Incidents in the past. Or perhaps just one. The third Incident. 1842. No, she wasn't quite old enough for that. But the first and second Incidents were not from this time period, so she could not have caused them unless she was also a time traveler.

I fumbled with my coin, but it gave me no information on her. Not even her name. Not even a citizen ID number. Even I had an ID number. Everyone under Mortimer's jurisdiction did, whether they were aware of time travel or not.

Not having an ID number was highly unusual, if not downright illegal.

Perhaps she and her brother were part of some greater organization that hunted us, an organization that had been in existence since before the first Incident. But why? And if that were true, why have there only been three Incidents? Have they been covering them up? Replacing lost time travelers with robots or clones so that-

"Kara!" Lena snapped, jerking me away from my insane imagination. "Are you going to tell me what I want to know or will I have to call Mere?"

"Mere?" I asked stupidly. She gave me a devilish grin and drew away from me. It felt like the heat left my body when she moved away from me and towards the window. I stood up and backed away from her, from the window. Despite the name, Mere didn't seem like any mere threat.

"Mere!" She called, and the window flew open as a large batlike creature flew inside the room. Its head morphed into that of a wolf's. Then the rest of its body began to change as well. The creature knocked me to the ground and climbed on top of me, pinning my arms down with its claws. I could feel blood dripping down the sides of my arms and Lena looked annoyed that her carpets were being stained with my blood.

"I don't suppose I have to put my threat into words," she said coldly.

Teeth dug into my shoulder and I screamed. If people outside the household did hear me, they would probably assume that my cries of pain and fear belonged to a deranged patient at the asylum. They would think to themselves how sad it was, but mostly they would be glad that I was locked up, away from them and their family.

I was all alone.

"Stop," Lena instructed. The wolf opened its mouth, letting go of me and lifted its head to look at her. "Now will you take me to Mortimer?" She asked with the tone of a bored child who just wanted to go home.

I nodded and she smiled. She made a strange clicking noise with her mouth and the wolf climbed off of me. It crawled to the window, became batlike once more, and flew away.


	9. About an Anti-Paradox

There was heartache in his eyes as he looked at her, and something else: tears. The rest of me was warm but my toes were freezing. He had never let his daughter see him cry before; she never considered that it was possible for him to cry before. He kissed her forehead whispered _I love you, my darling._ Everything was blurry and my eyes ached to be held open. Even as a child, she understood what was going on. They were taking her father away from her. There was a noise coming from something near me. She tried to respond, to tell him that she loved him too, more than anything in the world. That she needed him. Why was my hair dripping water into my face? Instead she mumbled _okay_.

My eyes flashed open to see a woman standing to my right. Why was I in a bed? What was going on? Who was this woman? Why did my father have to go? He was mad. Not in the sense that he was angry, but in the sense that he was crazy. Her father—my father—was being taken to an insane asylum.

"Miss Danvers," the woman said to me, jerking me away from my thoughts. "I'm glad you're awake. Drink this." My eyes focused on the woman—a kind face with slight wrinkles around the mouth and eyes, hair pulled back into a neat bun and a dull looking brown dress—and then the glass of clear looking liquid that she held out to me.

Was I in a hospital? There was a bandage on my shoulder from where the monster bit me, so that much wasn't a dream. Danvers, she called me Danvers. That was the name I gave to Lena.

Wait. Luka's last name was Danvers. " _And you can have it anytime you like,"_ his voice echoed in my thoughts.

 _Why did I not realize that before?_ Somehow he knew I would be in this situation. Perhaps that's why he had been so excited to see me. He had already met me in what was his past but my future.

I took the glass offered to me and slowly drank what I thought was water. It was a bit sweeter.

"How do you feel, Miss Danvers?" The woman asked me.

"Who are you? What's going on? Why-" I tried to ask more questions, but she hushed me with the serenity of a mother.

"You may call me Carm. Now lie back down." Already I could feel my eyelids getting heavy, and I started to suspect that there wasn't just water in the glass. "You need your rest."

The next time I regained consciousness, the two children were arguing.

"Lex, we can't just let her die," Lena was saying.

"I didn't say that," Lex argued, "but why do we need to treat her like she's some honored guest?"

"She has valuable information."

"Which you were trying to torture out of her just a few days ago! So why can't-"

"I said, NO."

He gave a scoff and probably a teenage glare. It seemed like Lena was in charge, which by the sound of it, was good for me. First I was attacked by a vampire like beast and now I was resting in the pseudo-hospital in their house. What made her change her mind? Or was this the plan from the beginning? Did she have that argument because she knew I was awake? To get me to trust her? Was this some demented form of good cop bad cop? It seemed unlikely, but one could never be too sure.

One thing I was pretty sure about was that I was getting out of here. At some point future me has to go meet past Luka so that I can tell him to tell past me to use his name in the future. It's weird to put into words, but not that uncommon of a situation where I come from. An anti-paradox.


	10. How Long is Forever?

I hadn't noticed the grandfather clock in my room before, but now the ticking just wouldn't stop. My body ached all over and I couldn't fall back asleep. My body shivered despite the blankets and my forehead was just about the only part of me that felt warm. Slowly I sat up and moved my feet to hang over the side of the bed. Sunbeams came in through the window like a holy spotlight beckoning me. I stepped into the light, still carrying a blanket wrapped around myself like a cloak. I noticed a book sitting in a chair on the other side of the room.

I glanced at the closed door and moved towards the book on my tiptoes. It didn't just have words; scrawled on the pages were equations and diagrams. What kind of book was this?

Property of Lionel luthor

It was a journal.

_The third trial with the electromagnet has proved to be a success. Motional emf is induced by the relative motion of the magnetic field, and its magnitude equal to the derivative of the magnetic flux, which when applied to the circuit breaker…_

I heard a noise and instinctively replaced the book as it had been and rushed back to my bed and shut my eyes. For many moments, nothing happened. There was no other noise, no door opening. Nothing but the muted sound of my own breath and my pounding heartbeat.

When the door finally did open, it was Lena who asked in the rather annoyed tone of a child forced to apologize "are you well enough to have breakfast with us?"

Grateful for the opportunity to leave the room, I nodded slightly. I shivered when I sat up and she moved towards me as if to help me up, but instead placed an icy palm on my forehead. She handed me the glass of liquid from the nightstand, but I shook my head, remembering that it wasn't simply water.

"It'll help," she insisted, but I wouldn't take it and she scoffed in annoyance. "Your infection will never get better if you don't cooperate."

Infection? That must be why I felt so bad.

"I'm fine," I told her, standing up a bit too fast to prove my point, tripping over my blanket train as I did so.

I was on my way to giving the floor a high five with my face when Lena's arms grabbed me with the speed of a wild mongoose and I remained suspended in the air for what seemed like the longest moment, a moment that the grandfather clock in the corner of the room had measured with the ending of one tick and the beginning of the next tock. She smelled like honeysuckle and fresh air after a rainstorm. I could feel her face turning red.

Once I was standing upright again, she had already turned away from me and headed towards the door. She readjusted the collar of her blouse to cover up a scar on her left shoulder. I probably should have laid back down, but I followed her anyway, out the door, down the spiral staircase I hadn't seen before, through a kitchen that smelt like scrambled eggs, and finally into the dining hall where Lex and Carm were already seated waiting for us.

Lena sat across from her brother, leaving the seat at the head of the table empty. By the looks of it, that seat had remained empty for a long time.

Lex Luthor, I thought. Their father. There was a seat at the other end of the table, presumably for their mother, in which Carm sat.

The butler filled Lena's glass with water as I debated where to sit.

There was still an open seat next to Lena at the six person table, but I opted for the one next to her brother.

"That's Fenris's seat," he mumbled.

"Alexander," Carm warned and the boy stopped speaking.

"I can move," I offered.

"No dear, you're fine," the woman assured me. It was then that I noticed that she wasn't eating anything. She had an empty plate and an empty glass sitting on the table before her. After Fenris finished serving Lena and me, he sat down across from me with an empty plate as well.

An awkward silence ensued and Lex was the first to break it.

"You fed Mere, right?" the boy asked his butler.

"Of course, master."

A few moments of silence passed and I took a bite of the food that had been placed in front of me. My French toast had blueberries on it. I was starving and it was delicious. I took another couple of bites, hungrily.

"Good to see you still have an appetite, Kara," Lena pointed out light-heartedly. "I was starting to worry you weren't eating enough, with all that sleeping you've been doing." She offered me a sly smile. Was she flirting with me?

I would have responded, if my mouth had not been full of food. Instead I just nodded and continued to chew what was in my mouth.

"Yes," Lex replied sarcastically. "It would be a shame if your new object of affection didn't feel up to eating like the rest of us."

Lena shot him a dirty glare and kicked him under the table. He winced in pain.

I stifled a laugh, watching the siblings fight. A strange sense of calm passed over me. I felt like I was a part of their family somehow.

For the first time since entering the manor, however odd it may be, I didn't want to escape.


	11. Time Flies, Time Dies

Luthor manor was an odd place. It didn't help that I spent most of my time there asleep, occasionally catching pieces of conversations. Sometimes I can't tell what's real and what's only a dream or hallucination. I suppose I am still a prisoner, in that I can't leave, but Luthor manor feels more like a hospital than a dungeon.

_"Know your people,"_ my former captain's voice echoed in my brain. _"Their strengths, weaknesses, motivations."_

My coin could give me no information on either Lena or Lex. Mere and Fenris also did not appear in Mortimer's databases, though I suspected this was because they were not human. Carm did appear, though not in the way I was expecting.

According to Mortimer's databases, Carmen Dowling had lived a relatively normal life, albeit in the 18th rather than 19th century in which I currently found her. She was born Carmen Walsh in 1734, and had 4 other siblings, one of whom had died in infancy. She married a man named Trevor Dowling in 1756, but the pair had no children. She died in 1775 from tuberculosis. What she was doing alive in 1863 was anybody's guess.

Mortimer's database could not help, so I would have to rely on my brain, which was already wacky from whatever drug they were giving me to help with my shoulder. Or maybe that was the infection. I couldn't be sure.

So there's Carm: an older woman who functions as a motherly figure to the children. She seems very kind-hearted, even to me, and wants to keep the children safe. She cares too much. That's her weak spot.

Fenris hangs on to every word from Lex's mouth like it's pure gold. He may be the family's butler, but he's loyal to that boy only. His physical speed and strength are exceptional, even in my time. Maybe if I had weapons, I could take him. Maybe. The best way to control him is through Lex. Every command that boy gives is binding.

Lex, or Alexander, acts like he's a lot older than he actually is. He craves power but feels as though his autonomy is being constantly threatened by his nanny and older sister. That's why he has Fenris, a powerful man he has ultimate control over.

Mere seems like a more intense version of an attack dog and not at all human, so I will move past him for now. I will say that he seems to be following the rules of vampirism set by Bram Stoker. Although Dracula has not yet been written. Perhaps I'm thinking about this wrong. Maybe Stoker based his novel on creatures like Mere and Fenris rather than them basing their behavior on Stoker's novel.

And then there's Lena. Oh, where do I even begin? Her emotions change so often that it's hard to understand what she wants, really. First, she wanted to get to Mortimer. She was willing to torture me to get information. And now? She's fussing over my sick bed like Carm, worrying about my recovery from a wound she gave me. Maybe it's guilt. Maybe she's afraid I'll die before I can tell her what she needs to know. Maybe she's starting to care for me? Is that even possible, or am I letting my feelings cloud my judgement? Alexandercalled me her new object of affection, but was that just sibling teasing or did it have any truth to it? She's a difficult person to understand, and it doesn't help that I can't think straight around her.

My eyes flashed open, my mind still spinning from my dreams of a toy train and cerulean eyes. The train disappeared, but the eyes were still here, watching me from the chair near my bed. Lena Luthor was sitting with a foot in the chair so she could rest her elbow on one knee. Her black trousers told me that she shared my hatred for Victorian dresses.

"So," she began once she saw I was fully awake, "ready to talk?" Somehow it didn't sound menacing. It was more like a friendly question, but I knew the real meaning behind the pretty eyes and pouty smile. She wanted to know about Mortimer, about everything that I was not allowed to tell her.

"About what?" I asked innocently, yawning as I did so to show I was still groggy with sleep.

She moved her leg down to the floor and walked towards me, using her threatening voice as she did so, "Don't play dumb with me, Kara. I know you're a time traveler."

"Wait," Stop talking, my mind said. But somehow the message didn't get to my mouth. "So, if you already know that, then why am I being interrogated?"

Lena placed an icy palm on my forehead to measure the temperature. "I'll make this simple for you. I need-" she paused and cursed under her breath. She didn't seem mad at me, though. "Why isn't it working?"

"Why isn't what working?" I asked. She let out a frustrated sigh in response but otherwise ignored me entirely. My fever must still be high. That would explain why my head hurts so much.

"I'll be frank with you." Lena said, changing the topic. "I need to get to Mortimer."

"Why is that so important to you? You have a life here, a family. Why are you trying to run away from that?"

"It doesn't matter!" she snapped, turning back to face me. Her gaze was so intense I could feel my body shaking, though that might be from the infection. "Do you see that death trap on your wrist? You have to get back to Mortimer soon too, or else Carm'll be cleaning ashes off my bed."

She was right. I did have to get back. I had a week to begin with, but I had spent time at Luka's shop, as the asylum, and who knows how long asleep in this bed.

4 days 17 hours 35 minutes 2 seconds and counting was what I had left.

Somehow, all I could think to say was "this is your bed?"

"You're insufferable" she said, but a small smirk formed at her lips as did so, "but despite your weaknesses, you seem to have a knack for surviving. I just hope that'll continue long enough for you to get me to Mortimer."


	12. The Things you Never Want to Lose

Dressed in our elaborate yet uncomfortable Victorian dresses, Lena and I each gripped the elbow of the well-dressed man between us as we walked through Berkshire. I had not seen him before this morning when I was told he would be escorting Lena and me on our journey to Mortimer. I couldn't be sure what his job was exactly, but it seemed like he worked for the Luthor children. Maybe he cleaned things or ran errands; or perhaps his job was simply to stand there and look pretty. My head was still pounding with every step I took, and I was glad once we made it to the carriage that would take us to London.

The handsome man offered me a sly smile as he helped me into the carriage. Then Lena. Then he bowed, closed the door, and climbed up to drive the horses.

Once we got closer, I would be asked to guide them to the shop where I met Luka. _What then?_ I wondered _. Would there be guards with guns waiting to kick them out? Possibly. Would Lena and pretty boy fight back? Definitely._ The only thing I was sure of was that I would be in huge trouble for bringing them. But I didn't see many other options.

"Charming fellow," I noted. Lena just shrugged, clearly unimpressed. "Is he always so quiet?"

"Mere's never been much for talking," she stared out the window as if refusing to look at me. "But as for quiet," she glared back at me with intimidating eyes and started to do her scary smile, "that's a whole other story." Mere. So, this was the human form of the creature that attacked me, that Lena ordered to attack me.

"Lots of fond memories then?" I asked with a bitter tone. Memories. Exactly what I didn't have. And probably never would get back because of all the trouble I would be in once I got back to Mortimer.

Her smile faded a bit. "Memories aren't always a good thing."

I raised my eyebrows. "Even bad memories are there to teach us. Imagine having no memories, never even knowing who your parents were."

"Oh yeah? Do you want to hear the last fond memory I have of my dear mother?" She spat the words out, challenging me.

I couldn't back down now. I nodded. She gave me the same scary smile, but with kinder eyes warning me for what was to come.

"This was a few days after my father died, so the house was already a funeral home. I remember my mother kept rubbing this bracelet on her wrist." Lena's eyes flickered to my wristband which I had subconsciously covered up with my other hand.

Lena closed her eyes and continued.

"I am standing in the dining room and my mother is crying because her bracelet is blinking with a red light. She yells at me to stay back, but I rush to her anyway. I want to hug her and tell her that everything will be okay, the way she has always done for me. She catches me in her arms, but she doesn't hug me. Instead, with some unnatural strength, she throws me away from her. When I land, the sharp corner of a table slices into my arm and I scream out in pain."

Lena opens her eyes and pulls at her dress so I can see the scar on her left shoulder.

"Enough," I begged, but she didn't stop. Her talking only became faster. Her eyes were wide open now, but she wasn't looking at me. Instead she was looking past me, as if she could see her mother dying right here in this carriage.

"I am so absorbed in my own pain that I hardly notice that the blinking has gotten faster. I can just barely hear my mother's voice over my own screams."

"Please." Now there were tears in my own eyes.

"'My dear child,' she says in a voice so calm that it frightens me. 'I am so sorry.' I blink the tears out of my eyes and I see her glowing. The flames cover her body and I can only watch in mystified horror. I hear her screaming in pain, but the noise continues long after she is gone. Even after I wake up, I still hear it, never sure if it is my own screams or hers."

I feel like I should say something to her, but I am unable to speak.

"So yes," she said, not even bothering to give me a scary smile. "I believe that sometimes it is better not to remember." Her voice was hollow, and her gaze still fixed on the invisible ghost of her mother behind me. We rode on in silence.


	13. A New Beginning

Luka's eyes went wide when he saw the three of us enter his store.

"Ha-How may I help you?" he asked shakily, unsure what to do with Lena and Mere. His eyes glanced over to me for clarification, but I was too ashamed to meet his eyes. I had broken one of the oldest rules by bringing them here. I shouldn't have. Why did I? I remember I didn't have much of a choice.

Lena offered him a friendly smile, pretending to be a tourist eager to return home. Her fingers gripped my arm, removing my glove and raising my arm to show him the wristband. "Familiar with these? We have a train to catch."

I saw Luka's eyes flicker down to Lena's wrist. Her glove was in the way and he couldn't be sure whether she had a wristband or not. "I'm sorry, there's no train here. But we do sell some lovely bonnets and parasols." He turned away to sort through other 19th century fashion accessories.

Lena gave me a look, as if there was some secret password I was supposed to tell him.

"Luka," I said, my voice laced with fake enthusiasm. "I'm sure you remember me from earlier this week." He didn't respond. I took a step closer to him. "Perhaps you would like me to try on that dress you mentioned."

"Miss Redwood," he responded, using the name I borrowed from him. He knew I borrowed it. I wonder if this is the future me meeting his past self, but then I push the notion aside. If he knows me, how could this be past him. Whatever illness this is must be affecting my brain. It won't let me think properly. "I'm sure you understand how expensive that dress is. If you damage it, the both of us will surely be punished." I got the sense he wasn't talking about the dress. I understood that much. But what was he trying to tell me? My head started hurting again.

"Oh don't worry Luka," I took another step towards him, away from her and that monster. They did this to me. No. Mere just did what she said. She did this to me. I should hate her. I can't let her into Mortimer. She's the fancy dress. I can't let them hurt her. "I have money to buy it. Then only one of us will be upset if it breaks." My responsibility. I took another step towards him as if to get the dress, but Lena's icy fingers snaked around my elbow.

"Kara," she berated me. "Surely you're not going to handle that dress all on your own. Take me with you and I can help you with the lace."

Her voice was soothing, like a siren. Then she screamed because Mere was lying unconscious on the floor. A needle stabbed me.

Then the floor came up to smack me in the face.

_"Kara! You can't do things like this!" It shouted at me. I had done a bad thing. "We spent all that money on a nice dress for you to wear, and now look!" It had ashes in its hands._

_'Is Luka okay?' I wanted to ask. I didn't because I thought that if I did, the floor would know that it was Luka's fault and he would be in trouble. And I didn't want that to happen so I kept my mouth shut as it hit me again._

_"I'm sorry" I cried. That must have done something because the floor got all soft and everything turned white._

I opened my eyes. A hospital room. I need to stop waking up like this. My wristband was gone, though, so that was a plus.

"How are you feeling, Agent?" a woman asked. Doctor Swift. She ran tons of tests on me before my first mission to make sure I was ready.

"A lilo beta" I struggled to say. She smiled.

"Well, I would say you are doing much better, all things considered. I had to give you some medicine. You may feel a little tired now, but it will wear off soon."

"Wha-what happand?"

"The other girl with you was not a registered citizen in the 19th century. In fact, she is not a registered citizen in any time. She does not exist. We took DNA samples and it placed her as the child of Lionel and Lillian Luthor. But they never had a child. They died during a vacation to 1842." The third Incident.

"Where-is?"

"We have her in custody now until we can decide what to do with her."

"She okay? Can I see?" She ignored my questions.

"We also have the animal locked up here. They're going to put him down soon. I've been able to keep him alive this long because we needed more information about your infection. Now that you're getting better, there's no sense in keeping the animal that injured you."

"No." I didn't want that to happen to Mere. But somehow, he wasn't as important as the other captive. "And her?"

Doctor Swift sighed. "Agent, there's been talk about having her executed as well."

That was all she said on the matter, and I was given food, water, and medicine, and put back to bed. I wasn't even asked for information about my asylum mission.


	14. A Familiar Face

"I'm not becoming a vampire, am I?" I asked Doctor Swift, during one of my daily checkups, probably sounding even more like the silly irresponsible child everyone here already thought I was.

She chuckled and shook her head. I felt a strange mixture of relief and offense.

I didn't like being patronized, but then again, I was a junior agent who ran away from the asylum I was supposed to be investigating, got injured and locked up by children who weren't even supposed to exist, and to top it all off, I led one of those children and their pet vampire straight to the clothing store above the time traveling train station. Sounds weird when you say it out loud, huh? So some junior agent messes up her first big gig, but at least she brought something back for show and tell. More specifically an unregistered person and her pet vampire.

The whole experience kept replaying in my head as Doctor Swift asked me all kinds of questions. It was supposed to help her measure my mental health and memory retention. At least that's what she told me. She seemed especially interested in Broadmoor asylum. I suppose that was my mission, but it seemed that the agency should be more interested in my mission than my doctor. I hadn't yet seen General Morgan, but she rarely made an appearance for agents as low ranking as myself. I thought Commander Stevenson would have stopped by, though.

At first I was relieved to be left alone, but soon I became bored and restless. Doctor Swift said she would do everything she could to keep Lena safe, but that didn't let me rest any easier. Lena Luthor was the unregistered child of two time travelers believed to be long dead. She shouldn't exist. It would be quite easy to fix the problem by incinerating her. Lex too, though Mortimer was currently unaware off his existence. That was the practical solution, but the thought sickened me now. Was it because I knew them or because I was letting my emotions get in the way of my work? Still, to have an execution without trial? All for the sake of existing?

Although, Lena did assault an agent and attempt to gain access to Mortimer by force, so I guess there was some criminal activity there.

There was a knock at the door and Nurse Foxwell entered. He smiled warmly at me. The old man was always very friendly towards me. He's been there for as long as I can remember (he was there when I woke up from my memory wipe), always watching out for me. He's the closest thing I have to a father.

"You look so much better, O." Foxwell liked to call me O, to make it sound like I had a real name other than O431.

"So, I'm not going to die then? Darn." He smiled faintly, but I knew there was something bothering him. "Any news about Lena?" I asked.

"O, there's going to be an official vote later today, but the majority seem to be in favor of her execution. General Morgan supports it for public reasons, showing everyone else how we deal with threats like this. That bad things happen when you don't follow the rules. Others like your Commander Stevenson support it for the sole purpose of keeping the timeline stable."

"But they were isolated, and they weren't interfering with anything." I complained.

"Oh? I think we both know that they had something to do with the anomalies in Broadmoor. The lycanthropy? It can't be a coincidence that your little captor just happens to have a shape-shifting beast."

"Okay, that's a valid point," I conceded. "But what-"

"Listen" he began "I don't want the girl to die either, but is it possible that you're suffering from the effects of Stockholm Syndrome?"

I didn't know what to say. It was another valid point. Why did I care so much for Lena and her family? Sure, she was beautiful, but she was somewhat emotionally unstable. It's not like a relationship between the two of us would ever work out. Not because we were both women, but because she was an unregistered person in the eyes of the law and I was an agent for Mortimer. It's not meant to be.

A relationship between us could only ever exist at Luthor manor, a supernatural and mysterious place unknown to Mortimer. But after they destroy Lena, Luthor manor will probably be next. Hopefully Lex and everyone can get away before then.


	15. An Experiment with an Unexpected Outcome

I was shaken awake suddenly by a young man in a doctor's uniform. But he wasn't a doctor.

"Luka?" I was about to ask, but he put his hand over my mouth.

"I'll explain everything later. Right now, we need to move." He led me out of the room and down a long white hallway. Nurse Foxwell emerged from a room with a gurney and motioned that I should get on, so I did. A sheet was pulled over me and we continued to move swiftly through the building. Suddenly we stopped and I heard the ding on an elevator. A sharp needle stabbed my arm and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was laying on a bed in a small room. Luka and Nurse Foxwell were sitting at a table with a pile of papers.

"What's going on?" I groggily asked. "Luka, how did you-"

"Get here?" he interrupted. "I was summoned for Lena Luthor's trial."

"They're giving her a trial?" I asked, surprised.

"On paper, yes. In reality, they've already decided to kill her," he said gloomily, "but I'm going to stop them. See, in the future—my past, her future—we're quite close. So, in order for me to have a past, she has to have a future."

"Wait," I said, wanting to believe him that she was going to be okay. "How do you know her?"

"There's a lot that I can't tell you, unfortunately. It's never good to know too much about your own future."

"However," interrupted Nurse Foxwell, "there are some things about your past that I can let you in on."

Nurse Foxwell told me how he had known me when I was first brought to the agency. Although my father was still alive, he had finally been locked up in an asylum and I was pretty much an orphan. So, the agency doctors did what they were supposed to do with new recruits. They erased my memory. Doctor Swift was assigned to be my doctor and she monitored me closely before and after the mind erasure. Nurse Foxwell explained that I was never supposed to be sent on that mission alone, but Swift wanted to see how I would react when placed in an environment with madness similar to my father's. She believed that the current technology left residual memories that could jeopardize a mission. She wanted to prove it so that the agency would finance her efforts to improve it. That's what I was. An experiment.

"Are they having me removed from the agency?" I asked finally.

"There was going to be a vote on that at the trial," Foxwell replied.

"Was?" I asked.

"I may have taken the liberty of removing you from their eye."

"What does that mean exactly?" I asked.

"We faked your death," clarified Luka cheerfully. "That was the easiest way to get you out of the hospital. Doctored the official records, injected you with some stuff to temporarily shut down your signs of life, and—BAM!—dead girl. "

"Swift gets what she wants and the agency doesn't have to deal with me," I mused.

"Precisely. Rescuing Lena is going to prove to be more difficult though. Since her parents were able to cheat death, they will be monitoring her closely before the execution."

"Wait," I turned to Luka, "I thought you said you could help her win the trial with the whole time-travel paradox thing."

"No, that's how I know everything will turn out fine." Luka explained. "If I actually said that, I'd probably have my mind wiped, like they wanted to do to me when I first got here."

"Okay, so how much do we know about the current situation with Lena?" I asked.

"I believe you will recognize the piece of jewelry on her wrist," Foxwell said, handing me a photograph.

Lena was dressed in the long sleeve white clothes of an asylum, sitting down on the floor with her knees up to her chest. Her arms were wrapped around her knees in such a way that I could clearly see the bracelet on her wrist with bright red numbers informing me that she had a little over 20 hours to live.

"Oh no," I groaned.


	16. Taking Sides in Due Process

Due to the heavily guarded nature of the prison cell Lena resided in, we were unable to get close to her before the trial.

Luka Danvers, dressed in a stylish red suit, stood with the other witnesses at the trial, ready to make a move on my command. Nurse Foxwell stood in the front rows of the massive audience. Since I was officially dead, I decided not to make a public appearance at the trial, but I was watching the whole thing unfold on a screen from a secure location, talking to them through their earpieces.

Since I was officially dead, I could not log into Mortimer database with my ID. However, Nurse Foxwell was able to get me into a database with a much higher access than I previously had.

As it turned out, we were not the only ones to show up to the trial with the intent of rescuing Lena Luthor.

When Lena was called up to the stand, I could see they had removed her wristband. They had to give the appearance of a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty. That was their first mistake.

She had been appointed a defense attorney, although no one paid much attention to him because he was destined to lose. That was their second mistake.

Martin Fisher barely had a law degree. He was first and foremost a scientist, and a magnificent one at that. However, he kept his projects a secret from society due to their somewhat sinister nature. Unbeknown to the agency, he had developed a form of time travel that did not require trains and was not limited to Mortimer's vast underwater tracks.

He had disappeared from the jurisdiction of Mortimer by traveling to a time before the agency was founded. Now the trial of a mysterious girl who had also escaped Mortimer's eye had brought him back into the light.

Just as Lena was declared guilty and Luka began sprinting towards her with the intent of saving her from incineration, Martin Fisher froze time.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that he froze everyone in the courtroom except for himself and Lena.

"Now then," he addressed Lena. "Who exactly are you?"

"My name is Lena Luthor," she said nervously, hoping the stranger was intent on not letting her die. "My parents were-"

"Lionel and Lillian Luthor, who survived the third Incident," he finished. "Blah, blah, blah. We heard that all before in your trial. No, no, no. What I want to know is," he paused, gesturing around the huge room of frozen people, "why you are here."

She looked at him like she was getting annoyed by this idiot. "I was captured and-"

"No, not that. For your whole life, you evaded the eye of Mortimer. Why have they only found you now? They have jurisdiction over time itself!"

I could see her eyebrows knit together in a combination of confusion and anger. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. I found myself wondering what her hair smelled like, and I had to snap myself out of a poorly timed daydream and back into reality and its pressing matters.

"It's not fair for them to have that much power, is it?" he asked her. I may have zoned out a bit during the conversation, but he seemed to be convincing Lena that Mortimer was evil. Not that she needed much convincing. "Come with me," he proposed "and we can work together to take down Mortimer."

That was all she ever wanted. Revenge. Now the mysterious man was offering it to her, in addition to saving her life. I was glad she was safe from execution, but if she was leaving, I would miss her. And also if they were destroying the only life I could remember, that would suck too. Then she finally spoke. But she only said one word.

"Kara?" she asked, though whether it was directed at me or Martin Fisher, I could not tell.

"I'm really sorry Luka," I muttered to myself as I increased the volume on his earpiece to the maximum, hoping his being frozen would prevent any damage I could cause to his eardrum.

"Lena, can you hear me?" I asked, broadcasting my voice through Luka's earpiece. She smiled brightly, looking so beautiful that I almost forgot what I was going to say. "Luka and Nurse Foxwell and I were trying to rescue you, but it looks like this guy's doing a much better job than us."

"I'll go with you," she told Martin Fisher, "on the condition that you let me bring my friends."


	17. Words Told in Silence

When Lena saw me, she squealed my name and rushed forward to envelop me in a tight embrace. She was so warm. I could feel her heart beating as she clung to me. They had almost killed her, but she was okay. She was safe in my arms and I wouldn't let her go.

"Yes, yes, yes," Martin Fisher interrupted in an annoyed tone. "A most happy reunion."

Martin Fisher took us all back to the time before Mortimer was established. No agency had been built, no tracks laid down. Even if the trains somehow could reach us, Mortimer had no jurisdiction here.

He had a nice house in what looked like the middle of nowhere. In addition to Martin Fisher, there was another man living here. Dr. Gavin Warrens, a former professor of physics and biomedicine famous for his papers describing the applications of Einstein's theory of relativity. This was the man who pretty much laid the groundwork for the invention of time travel itself.

"Doctor Warrens," I exclaimed. The old man smiled kindly at me.

At first, I was stunned to see him. It had been assumed that he died during an early experiment with time travel gone horribly wrong. As it turned out, Martin Fished had helped the professor fake his death and paid him generously for his help in developing an alternative form of time travel that would not be restricted by the government.

As I conversed with the professor, Lena listened to Martin Fisher describe his revenge plans and added her own menace. Luka and Nurse Foxwell withdrew began to talk amongst themselves, and I got the strange sense it was about me.

Later that day, I finally got a chance to speak to Lena Luthor alone. After dinner, I sat on the roof watching the sun set on an empty horizon. There was an incredible loneliness in the serenity of it all.

"Hey, Kara," she responded cheerfully as she sat down beside me and rested her head on my shoulder.

It was hard to imagine this friendly creature could have been so malevolent only hours before when she discussed the destruction of Mortimer without an ounce of compassion for the millions of Mortimer employees that would be murdered in the process.

"What's wrong?" she asked in an almost angelic voice when I didn't say anything back to her. I shrugged her off my shoulder and she turned her head to look directly at me.

"How can you do that?" I asked, not looking into her eyes for fear that if I did, she would have a better grip on my heartstrings. "Destroy Mortimer, I mean." I clarified after she looked at me in confusion.

"They killed my parents, Kara." The lightheartedness dropped from her voice, but the innocent ring still remained. "They tried to kill me too. Isn't it only fair?"

"Fair?!" I exclaimed. "So, I suppose I should attack you with a vampire beast then too."

Her face fell. "I'm really sorry about that," she admitted, with her gaze fixed at the ground.

"Yeah, well," I wasn't really sure what to say. "Your emotions are all over the place, Lena. I don't understand how you can be plotting mass murder one minute and wanting to cuddle up next to me the next minute."

It was like I had just yelled at a toddler. Her sapphire eyes filled with tears. Forget heartstrings being tugged; I could feel my heart shattering.

"It's not my fault," she sobbed. "I can't control it."

"I'm sorry," I tried to apologize, putting my arm around her shoulder to comfort her. "I didn't mean-"

She cut me off by grabbing my face and placing her lips on mine in an unexpected kiss. I froze up for a moment, then proceeded to kiss her back.

She pulled away, horrified by what she had just done. Beneath the confident and flirtatious persona was a terrified little girl.

"No," she muttered to herself. She slapped herself. "Stupid," she smacked her head.

I grabbed her hands before she could hurt herself anymore.

"It's okay, Lena." I assured her. "I like you too."

She stared at me, dumbfounded. "But you're a girl."

"Yes," I responded.

"And I'm a girl," she continued.

"Yes," I responded, apparently not as bothered by this as she was. "What's the problem?"

"But-" she started to say, but could not think of a rebuttal. Finally, she put her head back on my shoulder and gazed off in the distance at the sunset that had long since turned to darkness.


	18. Time Stays Long Enough for those to Use it

I don't think I will ever understand Lena Luthor, although I feel like I've spent a lifetime trying.

At one point, I kept a running tally of how many days we had been here, but I've long since lost count. Of course, the sun still marks the passage of a day, but the moon never changes, as if we are living the same day over and over again.

Lena has been working with Martin Fisher to create a masterful revenge plan, and they have all the time in the world to do it.

It's not enough to simply blow up a train, or even the entire corporation. Those things can be easily rebuilt, especially with access to time periods where structures are intact.

No, instead the corporation, its records and data, and any employees with knowledge of how the bracelets or time travel works must be destroyed. In every time period.

It seems as though Martin Fisher is set on destroying Mortimer not only because he despises the corporation and government as a whole, but also because he fears that one day they may be able to develop technology similar to his that would allow them to find him here. Genius and paranoia seem to run hand in hand in his case.

In addition to genocide, there's been talk of modifying human brains so that no one can remember Mortimer or conceptualize time travel, and human extinction has even been proposed.

Although Professor Warrens believes Martin Fisher's plans to be horrible, he is much too timid to tell him off for it. He prefers to keep to himself and stay out of the affairs of others.

Somehow, Lena convinced Professor Warrens to take me on a brief trip to see the life my younger self led, the life I can't remember. Of course, we couldn't interact with anyone, especially not my past self, but I got to see father letting me ride on his shoulders, his hands gripping my legs tightly against him so I wouldn't fall. I watched him smile as I messed up his hair. I had seen that smile before in my dreams

Seven years later, that little girl would see her father cry for the first time. He would be taken away from her, locked up in an asylum. She would be taken to Mortimer and trained to be an agent. She would forget ever having a father.

She would grow up. She would train. She would go on her first mission and fail miserably. She would make new friends, fall in love, nearly escape death countless times. She would survive.

The girl she fell in love with would work with an evil man to create a poison to kill everyone.

But this girl was clever, and she had a secret. The poison they created did not kill. Instead, it worked similarly to the serums used to erase the minds of young agents. It would make them forget. The girl with sapphire eyes had finally learned to be compassionate and forgiving. She didn't want anyone else to die, but she also had to protect her brother and those remaining at Luthor Manor.

The kindly nurse sacrificed his memory of the girls to save them. He took the poison back to Mortimer, but in the process of spreading it, he was affected by it. He knew this would happen and he made that sacrifice willingly, but the girl who loved him like a father still cried when he did not recognize her.

The professor took the girls and the tailor back to 1864.

The tailor went back to his shop and the girls went back to Luthor Manor.

Years later the girls—who, although women, preferred to think of themselves as girls—found an orphaned baby boy and took him in. They raised him as their own child. His mothers even made him a toy train in honor of their experiences with Mortimer. Although mostly wooden, as toy trains are, some of the wheels were replaced by buttons when they broke.

**THE END**


End file.
